Ergative–absolutive language

Ergative vs. accusative languages

An ergative language maintains a syntactic or morphological equivalence (such as the same word order or grammatical case) for the object of a transitive verb and the single core argument of an intransitive verb, while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently.

This contrasts with nominative–accusative languages such as English, where the single argument of an intransitive verb and the agent of a transitive verb (both called the subject) are treated alike and kept distinct from the object of a transitive verb.

These different arguments are usually symbolized as follows:

O = object of transitive verb (also symbolized as P for "patient")

S = core argument of intransitive verb

A = agent of transitive verb

The relationship between ergative and accusative systems can be schematically represented as the following:

See morphosyntactic alignment for a more technical explanation and a comparison with nominative–accusative languages.

Note that the word subject, as it is typically defined in grammars of nominative–accusative languages, has a different application when referring to ergative–absolutive languages, or when discussing morphosyntactic alignment in general.

Ergative languages tend to be either verb-final or verb-initial; there are few, if any, ergative SVO-languages.

Realization of ergativity

Ergativity can be found in both morphological and syntactic behavior.

Morphological ergativity

If the language has morphological case, then the verb arguments are marked thus:

The agent of a transitive verb (A) is marked as ergative case, or as a similar case such as oblique.

The core argument of an intransitive verb (S) and the object of a transitive verb (O) are both marked with absolutive case.

If there is no case marking, ergativity can be marked through other means, such as in verbal morphology. For instance, Abkhaz and most Mayan languages have no morphological ergative case, but they have verbal agreement structure which is ergative. In languages with ergative–absolutive agreement systems, the absolutive form is usually the most unmarked form of a word (exceptions include Nias and Tlapanec).

The following examples from Basque demonstrate an ergative–absolutive case marking system:

Here "-Ø" represents a zero morpheme, as the absolutive case is unmarked in Basque. The forms for the ergative are "-k" after a vowel, and "-ek" after a consonant. It is a further rule in Basque grammar that in most cases a noun phrase must be closed by a determiner. The default determiner (commonly called the article which is suffixed to common nouns and usually translatable by "the" in English) is "-a" in the singular and "-ak" in the plural, the plural being marked only on the determiner and never the noun. For common nouns, this default determiner is fused with the ergative case marker. Thus one obtains the following forms for "gizon" ("man" in English): gizon-a (man-the.sing.abs), gizon-ak (man-the.pl.abs), gizon-ak (man-the.sing.erg), gizon-ek (man-the.pl.erg). Note that when fused with the article, the absolutive plural is homophonous with the ergative singular. See Basque grammar for details.

In contrast, Japanese is a nominative–accusative language:

In this language, the argument of the intransitive and agent of the transitive sentence are marked with the same nominative case particle ga, while the object of the transitive sentence is marked with the accusative case o.

If one sets: A = agent of a transitive verb; S = argument of an intransitive verb; O = object of a transitive verb, then we can contrast normal nominative–accusative English with a hypothetical ergative English:

Accusative English:

She (A) found me (O). She (S) traveled.

(S form = A form)

Hypothetical ergative English:

She (A) found me (O). Her (S) traveled.

(S form = O form)

A number of languages have both ergative and accusative morphology. A typical example is a language that has nominative–accusative marking on verbs and ergative–absolutive case marking on nouns.

Georgian also has an ergative alignment, but the agent is only marked with the ergative case in the perfective aspect (also known as the "aorist screeve"). Compare:

K'ac'i vašls č'ams. (კაცი ვაშლს ჭამს) "The man is eating an apple." K'ac'ma vašli č'ama. (კაცმა ვაშლი ჭამა) "The man ate an apple."

K'ac'- is the root of the word "man". In the first sentence (present continuous tense) the agent is in the nominative case (k'ac'i). In the second sentence, which shows ergative alignment, the root is marked with the ergative suffix -ma.

However, there are some intransitive verbs in Georgian that behave like transitive verbs, and therefore employ the ergative case in the past tense. Consider:

K'ac'ma daacemina. (კაცმა დააცემინა) "The man sneezed."

Although the verb sneeze is clearly intransitive, it is conjugated like a transitive verb. In Georgian there are a few verbs like these, and there has not been a clear-cut explanation as to why these verbs have evolved this way. One explanation is that verbs such as "sneeze" used to have a direct object (the object being "nose" in the case of "sneeze") and over time lost these objects, yet kept their transitive behavior.

Syntactic ergativity

Ergativity may be manifested through syntax, such as saying “Arrived I” for “I arrived”, in addition to morphology. Syntactic ergativity is quite rare, and while all languages that exhibit it also feature morphological ergativity, few morphologically ergative languages have ergative syntax. As with morphology, syntactic ergativity can be placed on a continuum, whereby certain syntactic operations may pattern accusatively and others ergatively. The degree of syntactic ergativity is then dependent on the number of syntactic operations that treat the subject like the object. Syntactic ergativity is also referred to as inter-clausal ergativity, as it typically appears in the relation of two clauses.

Syntactic ergativity may appear in:

Word order (for example, the absolutive argument comes before the verb and the ergative argument comes after it)

Syntactic pivots

Relative clauses – determining which arguments are available for relativization

Subordination

Switch reference

Example

Example of syntactic ergativity in the "conjunction reduction" construction (coordinated clauses) in Dyirbal in contrast with English conjunction reduction. (The subscript (i) indicates coreference.)

English (SVO word order):

1. Father returned.
2. Father saw mother.
3. Mother saw father.
4. Father_(i) returned and father_(i) saw mother.
5. Father returned and _____(i) saw mother.
6. Father_(i) returned and mother saw father_(i).
7. Father returned and mother saw _____(i). (ill-formed, because S and deleted O cannot be coreferential.)

Dyirbal (OSV word order):

1. Ŋuma banagan^yu. (Father returned.)
2. Yabu ŋumaŋgu buṛan. (lit. Mother father-ŋgu saw, i.e. Father saw mother.)
3. Ŋuma yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. Father mother-ŋgu saw, i.e. Mother saw father.)
4. Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, yabu ŋumaŋgu_(i) buṛan. (lit. Father_(i) returned, mother father-ŋgu_(i) saw, i.e. Father returned, father saw mother.)
5. Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, yabu _____(i) buṛan. (lit. *Father_(i) returned, mother _____(i) saw; ill-formed, because S and deleted A cannot be coreferential.)
6. Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, ŋuma_(i) yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. Father_(i) returned, father_(i) mother-ŋgu saw, i.e. Father returned, mother saw father.)
7. Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, _____(i) yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. Father_(i) returned, _____(i) mother-ŋgu saw, i.e. Father returned, mother saw father.)

Split ergativity

The term ergative–absolutive is considered unsatisfactory by some, since there are very few languages without any patterns that exhibit nominative–accusative alignment. Instead they posit that one should only speak of ergative–absolutive systems, which languages employ to different degrees.

Many languages classified as ergative in fact show split ergativity, whereby syntactic and/or morphological ergative patterns are conditioned by the grammatical context, typically person or the tense/aspect of the verb. Basque is unusual in having an almost fully ergative system in case-marking and verbal agreement, though it shows thoroughly nominative–accusative syntactic alignment.

In Urdu and Hindi, the ergative case is marked on agents in the preterite and perfect tenses for transitive and ditransitive verbs, while in other situations agents appear in the nominative case.

laṛkā kitāb kharīdtā hai boy-NOMINATIVE-MASCULINE book-NOMINATIVE-FEMININE buy-IMPERFECT-MASCULINE be-PRESENT ¹ "The boy buys a book." laṛke ne kitāb kharīdī boy-ERGATIVE-MASCULINE book-NOMINATIVE-FEMININE buy-PERFECT-FEMININE ¹ "The boy bought a book."

In Dyirbal, pronouns are morphologically nominative–accusative when the agent is first or second person, but ergative when the agent is a third person.

Optional ergativity

Many languages with ergative marking display what is known as optional ergativity, where the ergative marking is not always expressed in all situations. McGregor (2010) gives a range of contexts when we often see optional ergativity, and argues that the choice is often not truly optional but is affected by semantics and pragmatics. Note that unlike split ergativity, which occurs regularly but in limited locations, optional ergativity can occur in a range of environments, but may not be used in a way that appears regular or consistent.

Optional ergativity may be motivated by:

The animacy of the subject, with more animate subjects more likely to be marked ergative

The semantics of the verb, with more active or transitive verbs more likely to be marked ergative

The grammatical structure or [tense-aspect-mood]

Languages from Australia, New Guinea and Tibetan have been shown to have optional ergativity.

Distribution of ergative languages

Prototypical ergative languages are, for the most part, restricted to specific regions of world: the Caucasus, parts of North America and Mesoamerica, the Tibetan Plateau, and Australia.

Some specific languages are the following:

Caucasus and Mesopotamia

Hurrian (extinct)

Urartian (extinct)

Sumerian (extinct)

South Caucasian: Georgian, Laz

Northeast Caucasian: Chechen, Lezgian

Northwest Caucasian: Abkhaz, Circassian

Kurdish: Gorani, Zazaki, Sorani and Kurmanji

Asia

Chukchi

Tibetan

Pashto and Balochi

Americas

Chibchan languages

Chinook languages

Eskimo–Aleut languages

Mayan

Mixe–Zoque

Panoan languages (Peru, Brazil, Bolivia), e.g. Shipibo-Conibo

Tsimshian

Australian

Most Australian Aboriginal languages, such as Dyirbal

Certain Australian Aboriginal languages (e.g., Wangkumara) possess an intransitive case and an accusative case along with an ergative case, and lack an absolutive case; such languages are called ergative–accusative languages or tripartite languages.

Europe

Basque

Sign languages (for example, Nepali Sign Language) should also generally be considered ergative in the patterning of actant incorporation in verbs. In sign languages which have been studied, classifier handshapes are incorporated into verbs, indicating the subject of intransitive verbs when incorporated, and the object of transitive verbs. (If we follow the "Semantic Phonology" model proposed by William Stokoe (1991) this ergative-absolutive patterning also works at the level of the lexicon: thus in Nepali Sign Language the sign for TEA has the motion for the verb DRINK with a manual alphabet handshape च /ca/ (standing for the first letter of the Nepali word TEA चिया /chiya:/) being incorporated as the object.)

Many other languages have limited ergativity. In both Pashto and Hindi (Indo-Iranian), ergative behavior occurs only in the preterite and perfect tenses, and in the Georgian, ergativity only occurs in the perfective.

The Philippine languages (e.g., Tagalog) are sometimes considered ergative (Schachter 1976, 1977; Kroeger 1993), however they have also been considered to have their own unique morphosyntactic alignment. See Austronesian alignment.

Several scholars have hypothesized that Proto-Indo-European was an ergative language. However, this hypothesis is disputed.

Approximations of ergativity in English

English has derivational morphology that parallels ergativity in that it operates on intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs. With certain intransitive verbs, adding the suffix "-ee" to the verb produces a label for the person performing the action:

"John has retired" → "John is a retiree" "John has escaped" → "John is an escapee"

However, with a transitive verb, adding "-ee"" does not produce a label for the person doing the action. Instead, it gives us a label for the person to whom the action is done:

"Susie employs Mike" → "Mike is an employee" "Mike has appointed Susie" → "Susie is an appointee"

Etymologically, the sense in which "-ee" denotes the object of a transitive verb is the original one, arising from French past participles in "-é". This is still the prevalent sense in British English: the intransitive uses are all 19th-century American coinages and all except "escapee" are still marked as "chiefly U.S." by the "Oxford English Dictionary".

English also has a number of so-called ergative verbs, where the object of the verb when transitive is equivalent to the subject of the verb when intransitive.

When English nominalizes a clause, the underlying subject of an intransitive verb and the underlying object of a transitive verb are both marked with the possessive case or with the preposition "of" (the choice depends on the type and length of the noun: pronouns and short nouns are typically marked with the possessive, while long and complex NPs are marked with "of"). The underlying subject of a transitive is marked differently (typically with "by" as in a passive construction):

"(a dentist) extracts a tooth" → "the extraction of a tooth (by a dentist)" "(I/The editor) revised the essay" → "(my/the editor's) revision of the essay" "(I was surprised that) the water boiled" → "(I was surprised at) the boiling of the water" "I departed on time (so I could catch the plane)" → "My timely departure (allowed me to catch the plane)"